Sodebo: innovating and diversifying through a ‘Lean’ approach

In 1968, to comply with a new regulation, Joseph and Simone Bougro had to install refrigerated display cabinets in their delicatessen in the Vendée region, in France – an investment equivalent to a year’s turnover. Forced to expand, they developed ready-made meals that were so successful that they set up Sodebo in 1973 to move into industrial production. Their three daughters, Marie-Laurence, Patricia and Bénédicte, now co-presidents, went on to develop the business. Sodebo launched numerous innovations, diversifying into pasta, salads and other products. As variety often leads to costly complexity in integrated businesses, specialised factories were established. To bring everything together, a specialist in Lean management helped the managers to structure the company, a transformation in which Margaux Mercier, a member of the third generation of the founding family, was involved. Sodebo, a mid-sized company with 3,200 employees manufacturing over a million products every day, is now a benchmark in Lean management.